


AMA

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Community: ohsam, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Episode: s02e01 In My Time of Dying, Gen, Hurt!Sam, Hurt/Comfort, Vomiting, guilty!dean, internal bleeding, ohSam 2015 Fanworks Prompt Challenge, post episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 20:18:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3622893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Sam was holding himself too tightly. Like he was afraid to move. His stillness wasn’t just unnatural for him, it was unnatural in the way of a quiet before the storm, or the silence before a tsunami made landfall. It was the kind of stillness that shouted, ‘Don’t touch me, or I’ll shatter.’ Something was wrong with Sam.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	AMA

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the ohSam! H/C prompt: _Dean and John are not the only ones hurt in the car crash in Devil's Trap. Sam signed out AMA to sit with Dean in the hospital. It's not until they are at Bobby's that Sam's injuries make themselves known..._
> 
> I didn't make it all the way to Bobby's, and the funeral home...well, I figured the hospital wasn't just going to give John's body to the boys, so they had it sent to a funeral home where Bobby could break in and steal it back.

Sam was still.

Dean’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror for the tenth time in as many minutes to check on the kid. He never sat still. Sure, he could research for hours or trawl the web on his laptop, but he was always moving, always fidgeting, drumming his fingers, twirling a pen, gnawing on his bottom lip in concentration; but he never sat still. Not like this.

Bobby’s ’71 Chevelle wasn’t built for tall people. Despite that, Sam had insisted Dean take the front seat because, full recovery or not, his body was still banged to hell, and he had four cracked ribs and a concussion to come back from. Sam folded himself in the back and Dean fully expected a half hour’s worth of knees and elbows and exaggerated sighs from behind him because even the Impala’s backseat hadn’t been big enough for Sam since he was sixteen, and Dean could recall hours of grumbling from the rear punctuated by knobby joints in his back through the seat during the long cross-country jaunts with John.

Dean veered away from the memory, still unable to even think John’s name without a fresh surge of pain. His eyes darted to the rearview again. Sam met his gaze for a moment before letting it slide away like water on glass and lose his focus in the space between. Dean frowned.

Sam was holding himself too tightly. Like he was afraid to move. His stillness wasn’t just unnatural for _him_ , it was unnatural in the way of a quiet before the storm, or the silence before a tsunami made landfall. It was the kind of stillness that shouted, ‘Don’t touch me, or I’ll shatter.’ Something was wrong with Sam.

Although, it didn’t take a genius to reason that out, Dean thought. 

There was something wrong with both of them. Their father had just died. And no matter how many fights he’d had with the man, no matter how many nights Dean had fallen asleep holding a sobbing little brother who swore he would hate John forever, Sam still loved his father. Maybe even more than Dean because Sam had no memory of any other parent. John was it for Sam, and maybe there was an unhealthy attachment there, for both of them, but that’s just how things were.

‘I’m gonna drop you boys at the motel and then,’ Bobby floundered a moment, swallowing audibly, ‘go get your dad.’

‘We’ll go with you,’ Sam said from the back before Dean had a chance to respond. His voice was flat, hard like Dean had never heard before. 

‘Naw,’ Bobby said, eyeing Sam in the rearview, obviously picking up on the same odd tone Dean had. ‘You boys need to rest. I’ve called Rufus. He’s gonna meet me after dark at the funeral home. Don’t imagine there’s much security on them places. Not like the clientele are going anywhere. It’ll be a cake walk.’

Sam didn’t argue like Dean expected, like he would have for sure had John been the one excluding him. True, he’d always been a bit more respectful of Bobby, but when Sam wanted something  he was like a jealous clam with a prize pearl, not letting go until he was damn good and ready and got his way. So, Dean’s gaze flicked to the mirror yet again to see Sam sitting solid like a marble effigy with his eyes closed, and a shade paler perhaps than a few minutes ago, but he wouldn’t swear by it. The kid was tired, Dean told himself. That’s all. Exhausted. They both were. Bobby was right. They needed to rest.

Bobby swung the Chevelle into a parking spot in the corner of the bi-level Way Stop 66 Motel and dug a key card out of his wallet, offering it to Dean between two fingers.

‘You comin’?’ Dean asked.

’Nope. Got some stuff to get to gather. I’ll get us some grub after…uh, on my way back. You two go on in and get some sleep,’ Bobby replied.

‘Been sleepin’ for days, Bobby.’

Bobby’s eyes flicked up to the mirror and then slanted meaningfully at Dean. ‘Yeah, but your brother hasn’t,’ he said, voice pitched low as if Sam might not hear him. ‘Take him in and get him to lay down, will ya?’

Dean nodded and took the card. He pushed open the door and gingerly swung himself around, holding one arm tight around his ribs as he used the other to lever himself out of the seat. He was steadying his balance against the roof of the car for a second when he felt a broad palm at the small of his back.

‘Okay?’ Sam asked. 

Dean gave a curt nod and started toward the stairs, Sam trailing after him. The Chevelle’s engine rumbled and then revved as Bobby reversed out of the space and drove away.

‘Come on, Sam, let’s get you to a bed before you fall over,’ Dean said without looking back. He was most of the way up the stairs, working to keep his breathing steady so he didn’t jar his ribs before he realized the warm, hulking presence of his brother wasn’t at his back. He was just turning when he heard the stifled groan and thud on the stairs behind him. 

‘Sam?’

Sam was on one knee on the stairs, white-knuckling the railing, face nearly grey and sweat beading at his temples.

‘Sam!’

Dean clamored back down the stairs to his brother and dropped down on his butt on the step so he could get hold of Sam’s jacket and haul him up. Sam was breathing hard, or trying to; it was like he was trying to empty his lungs out enough to take another breath but couldn’t. 

‘Jesus, Sammy, what the hell?’ Dean levered him mostly upright on his knees and kept a firm hold on him with one hand while he gave him a cursory examination with the other, looking for _what_ he wasn’t sure, but anything that would suddenly cause his brother to collapse. He found nothing obvious above Sam’s skin being slightly clammy and so cupped his brother’s face and tried to get Sam to focus on him.

‘Sam, c’mon, man. It’s just a few more steps.’ He got an arm around Sam’s back and pulled them both up, ignoring the sharp flare of pain in his ribs. ‘You are _exhausted_ , little brother. You need to sleep. _Have_ you slept? At all?’

‘Dean, your ribs,’ Sam protested as Dean got under his shoulder and pulled him in close to support him up the stairs. 

‘Fuck my damn ribs, Sam. Now, answer me. Did you sleep?’

‘No.’ Sam somehow still managed to sound exasperated even while he was struggling to get enough air in to do it.

‘Don’t get pissy with me, kiddo,’ Dean countered. ‘You need to take better care of yourself.’

‘I was kinda busy,’ Sam muttered as Dean worked to balance him and get the key card in the slot at the same time.

‘It’s not like I was going anywhere, Sammy. You could have at least crashed out for an hour or two.’

‘Dad was—.’ Sam gasped for a breath and tried again. ‘I wasn’t sure what Dad was gonna do, and I was so pissed at him for just letting you lie there.’

‘Well, turns out neglecting yourself didn’t do anyone any good,’ Dean said without thinking.

Sam’s mouth shut with a snap, and he pulled his arm from Dean’s shoulders and stumbled to the nearest bed, dropping onto it and huffing in little truncated breaths like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room.

Dean swore under his breath and pushed the door closed, keeping the flat of his hand on the cheap, pockmarked wood and hanging his head. ‘Sam, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just—.’ 

‘It’s okay, Dean. I get it. And, really, you’re right. It didn’t do anyone any good.’

Dean rubbed at his temples, threw the lock, and pushed Bobby’s salt line back into place with the side of his boot. He should check the rest of the room. That damn demon was still out there, after all. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Bobby, but old habits died hard. He was so damn tired, though, he could barely see straight—or maybe that was the concussion—and all he wanted to do was throw himself across one of the queen beds and sleep for a week despite what he’d said to Bobby only minutes ago about having slept plenty lately. 

Instead, he shrugged out of his jacket and slumped in a chair. Sam was still hunched on the bed where he’d landed, hair hanging in his eyes, looking pale and slightly glassy-eyed, but his breathing had settled a little, at least.

‘Sam, lay down,’ Dean said, trying to keep his tone tractable.

Sam didn’t make to move or answer him, but Dean caught the tail end of a groan and leaned forward.

‘Sam, you all right?’

‘Stomach hurts,’ Sam mumbled, breath catching as he curled in on himself in obvious discomfort.

‘You probably haven’t eaten a damn thing either, I’ll bet,’ Dean sighed as he got up to move over beside Sam on the bed, keeping an arm tucked close around his ribs and trying not to cringe as sharp needles of pain stabbed all along his left side with every step he took.

‘Budge up,’ he said, knocking Sam lightly on the shoulder. ‘Lay down and stretch out. Lose the jacket.’

Sam reluctantly obeyed, muffling another groan as he slowly tipped to the side and rolled to his back. He cracked an eye at his brother. ‘What’re you gonna do?’

Dean settled on the bed beside Sam’s hip. ‘The same thing I always did when you had an upset stomach.’ 

Sam still had the presence of mind to roll his eyes. ‘Dude, I am not five years old anymore. Besides, it’s not upset.’ 

‘Just shut up and let me, will ya?’ Dean said, not seeming to hear Sam’s protest. He reached out to flatten a warm, heavy palm over Sam’s abdomen. The feel of hard muscle under his hand surprised him. No more thin veneer of baby fat, not anywhere, and Dear wondered when his little brother had grown up to be not so little anymore.

Sam hissed in pain, shoulders curling off the bed, and tried to roll out from under Dean’s hand. Dean pulled back. 

‘Sam?’

Sam tried to catch his breath, wrapped his arms gingerly around himself as if for protection. Dean shifted up the bed and leaned in close, laying a hand against his brother’s cheek for a brief moment, worry taking point over the annoyance in his eyes, before moving to gently pry his arms loose.

‘Come on now, kiddo, let me see,’ he coaxed softly.

Sam unwound his arms and allowed Dean to ruck up his t-shirt. Dean hissed this time and winced in sympathetic pain at the mass of ugly bruised skin that stretched from below Sam’s sternum almost to his lower belly, getting particularly dark and ugly under his ribs.

‘Jesus Christ, Sam, what—?’

‘Steering wheel,’ Sam said shortly, hooking the hem of his t-shirt with his thumb and pulling it back down because he couldn’t stand the guilty look in his brother’s eyes. It hurt too much.

‘I’ll, uh—I’ll go get some ice,’ Dean said, moving to get up, but Sam caught his arm.

‘Dean, just rest. Okay? I’ve had worse. I’ll live.’ 

Dean pulled from his grip and stood up, turning back with his best impression of Sam’s bitch-face, ‘Think I’d trundle my ass down all those stairs and clear across the lot with four cracked ribs just for you? I need some for me.’ He grimace then as if to prove his point. ‘Fuck, my side is on fire.’

Dean didn’t do very well faking careless reproach, at least not with Sam, so he let it slide and just rolled away from the door when Dean went out with the ice bucket and tried to close his eyes and not see his father laying lifeless on the hospital floor in the darkness of his dreaming.

——

When Sam woke up again, it took him a full minute to remember where he was and why. His brain felt thick and fuzzy and slow. His whole body was hot and his arms and legs felt weak like he’d just dug about twenty graves in hard clay soil—by himself.

He rolled to his side and tried to sit up but lightheadedness and nausea knocked him back. He swallowed against the surge in the back of his throat, but it didn’t taste right. It was coppery instead of acidic. He swallowed again, gagged a little, and tried once more to sit up. He needed to get to the bathroom. He was either going to throw up or wet the bed if he didn’t—very possibly both—and he really didn’t want to wake Dean who was sleeping, if not soundly, with his heavily furrowed brow and tightly drawn lips, _was_ at least sleeping in the other bed a few feet away.

He was ready for the nausea this time and the lightheadedness was nothing he couldn’t handle from a handful of prior concussions, but all of it combined with the pervading weakness in his limbs was making it hard to navigate. He shuffled unsteadily to the dresser and leaned there for a few seconds to try and catch his breath which was coming suddenly short again with the slightest exertion just like it had on the stairs earlier.

The room tilted and rolled and his stomach heaved and he choked back more coppery bile. He lurched toward the bathroom door, determined not to throw up in the middle of the room, but his brain didn’t get the message to his legs fast enough, and he crash landed on his knees, face planting a second later into the musty, scratchy threadbare carpet.

‘Sam? Sammy!’

Dean was by his side in a second, kneeling to pull Sam’s cheek off the dusty, rough carpet and cradle it on his thigh, because this was Dean. This was Sam’s big brother who believed that five o’clock in the morning shouldn’t exist—especially not without a good tarry dark roast—and took at least twenty minutes to wake up no matter the time of day it was and another hour to become civilized; but when it came to Sam needing him, Dean’s reflexes were super human. He was awake and barreling through any kind of pain to get to his brother when he was hurt or needed him for anything.

‘Sam, what happened? Talk to me, kiddo.’

‘Dean, I think I’m gonna be—.’ Sam didn’t manage to to get all the warning out of his mouth, nor did he manage to get himself lifted up far enough to not vomit all over Dean’s thigh and one hand.

‘Shit,’ Dean muttered, but to Sam’s surprise that was all he said. No grumbling, or oaths of revenge, or threats of six months worth of teasing. It was a testament to how tired he was. Or how worried.

‘Sorry, Dean, I—.’

‘Hey, shh, Shhh. Just…let me get some towels, and then we’ll get you to the bathroom. Get you cleaned up,’ Dean said, and he shifted carefully to get up off the floor.

‘No, Dean, please,’ Sam whined, pawing at his leg weakly, suddenly feeling sick and frightened like he had once when he was eleven and had caught a horrendous case of the stomach flu an their father had been out on a hunt and the Montana wind was howling down on them during an early winter blizzard in a hotel room with a crapped out radiator.

Dean’s clean hand was in his hair in an instant, stroking tenderly, scratching lightly at his scalp. ‘Hey, hey, baby boy….’

Tears surged to Sam’s eyes, and he pressed harder against Dean’s thigh. It had been so, so long since his brother had called him that.

‘Hey, c’mon. I’m just gonna be a second. I swear it,’ Dean soothed and let Sam’s head down to the floor very gently. He stood up, leaving Sam cold and wretched and shaking on the floor. The bathroom light flipped on.

‘Fuck.’

Dean’s voice cracked like a whip across Sam’s uncertain consciousness and his footfalls came back, heavier and more hurried. His hands were rougher and a little panicked as he wrangled Sam off the floor to whining protests.

‘Sam. Sam, open your eyes,’ Dean ordered. His voice was tight and edgy. ‘Dammit! Open them, Sam.’

Sam forced his eyelids up, was stabbed in the retinas by the bright bathroom light which made his stomach heave again, and he grabbed for the sink, retching into it a second later.

‘Holy fuck, Sam.’

Dean’s arms were tight around Sam’s chest, holding him up, and Sam could feel his brother’s heart pounding through his back where they were pressed together. He looked down into the sink and slowly, blearily comprehended why Dean was suddenly so frantic.

It was splattered bright red.

‘Sam, can you sit?’ Dean didn’t wait for an answer, just carefully lowered Sam to the floor and propped him against the tub while he started the tap and soaked a washcloth. ‘C’mon, little brother, answer me. You still with me?’

Sam nodded, worked his tongue around the copper tasting mess in his mouth. ‘With you…Dee.’

Dean let out a shaky breath and wiped Sam’s face with the wet cloth, let him take a careful sip water from one cup to rinse his mouth out and then spit it into another. He mopped Sam’s face one more time, wiped his lips free of blood and then got right into his space, cupping Sam’s face in his hands and stroking his cheekbones with trembling thumbs.

‘The hell’s goin’ on here, Sam?’ he whispered. ‘They _did_ check you out, didn’t they? You _are_ okay?’

Sam’s head lolled a little and Dean steadied it, forcing Sam to look at him. 

‘AMA,’ he finally mumbled. ‘Checked myself out. Had to look out for you, Dean.’

‘Dammit, Sammy,’ Dean forced past the sudden lump in his throat and knocked their foreheads together. ‘Did they…did they tell you to look out for any symptoms? Did they think anything was wrong?’

‘Bleeding.’ Sam’s tongue felt too big for his mouth. His blood sounded sluggish in his ears, and his brain was misfiring old scraps of memory and fragments of time at him. He was having trouble staying in the room with his brother. ‘When’s Dad gonna be home, Dean?’

‘Dad…?’ Dean squinted, confused for a second. ‘Dad’s…. Wait, Sam. Bleeding? Internal bleeding? Was that what they were afraid of?’

Sam nodded, loose and bobble-headed in Dean’s hands. ‘Yeah. Think so. Dean, Dad’s not comin’ home, is he? You said he always would…but he’s not. Is he.’

‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ Dean sobbed once, gut wrenching and painful, and pulled Sam tight against his chest, burying his face in sweat damp but still silk-soft messy curls. ‘Sam, I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m so sorry, baby boy.’

It wasn’t until Sam moaned in pain that Dean released him a minute later.

‘Hurts, Dee,’ Sam whined pitifully.

‘Where, Sammy? Where does it hurt?’

Sam tugged ineffectually at the waistband of his jeans. ‘Belly hurts.’

‘Let me look at you.’ 

Dean carefully lowered Sam to the floor, rolling up a towel and putting it under his head. He pulled up Sam’s t-shirt again and flinched at the garish bruising under the bright light of the bathroom’s fluorescents. It looked worse. It looked like it had spread. He unsnapped Sam’s jeans and tugged them down a little, taking note how the bruising was mottling around his belly button, and his belly was swollen, imprint of his jeans’ and boxer’s waistband plainly visible where they’d cut into his middle. Dean pressed hesitantly against the newly bruised skin and Sam cried out, muscles bunching and flinching back of their own accord from Dean’s offending touch.

‘Shit.’ Dean leaned up over his brother, bracing his hands on either side of his shoulders. ‘Sam, we gotta get you back to the hospital. I’m gonna call Bobby, see how far out he is. You stay with me, you hear?’

Sam mumbled something. It was unintelligible, but at least he was responsive, and Dean could work with that. He sat back on his heels, slapped at his pockets for his phone and not finding it, went to search his jacket and then Sam’s, finally finding a spare of Bobby’s and figuring both of theirs had probably been mangled beyond usability in the crash. He flipped it open, dialed Bobby’s number.

‘Hello?’

‘Bobby, it’s Dean.’

‘Dean. You all right, son?’

‘Bobby, where are you?’

‘On my way back to the motel. Rufus is headed back toward my place with your dad. Hope that’s okay with you boys—.’

‘Fine,’ Dean cut him off. ‘Just get back here pronto. We need to get Sam back to the hospital.’

‘Why? What’s wrong with Sam?’

‘I’m not sure. I think he’s bleeding internally or somethin’. Did he say anything to you about having checked himself out AMA, Bobby?’

‘Naw,’ Bobby said. ‘By the time I got there, he was up and around and playing musical chairs between you and your dad.’

‘Dean?’ Sam’s wheezing call had Dean spinning back to the bathroom. By the time he got to the door, he found Sam trying to lever himself up to the toilet bowl, but failing and collapsing on his back, choking and gagging as he vomited up more blood.

‘Shit, Sam.’ Dean dropped beside him and rolled him onto his side. 

‘Dean. Dean! Is Sam all right?’ Bobby shouted into the phone.

Dean tried to hold Sam’s head out of the blood, keep the phone wedged against his shoulder, and check Sam’s pulse all at the same time. Sam had started to shiver uncontrollably on the cold tiles.

‘C-Cold, Dean. So c-cold.’

‘Dean!’ Bobby snapped again.

‘If you call vomiting blood and nearly choking on it okay, then yeah! He’s fucking fine!’ Dean snapped back. He took a huge breath and blew it out. ‘He’s going into shock, Bobby.’

‘I’m twenty minutes away,’ Bobby said. ‘But Dean, maybe you should call an ambulance.’

‘Too many questions,’ Dean said, settling Sam’s head on his knees to keep it out of the mess on the floor. ‘We’re runnin’ the ragged damn edge as it is.’

‘Okay, all right,’ Bobby acquiesced. ‘I’ll be there as quick as I can.’

Dean didn’t even say good-bye, just flipped the phone closed and threw it down. He leaned over Sam, cradling his head and checking his pulse again. It was verging on thready and much too fast.

‘Sam, you hang in there for me,’ Dean said as he wiped the blood from around Sam’s mouth again. 

‘C-Cold, Dean,’ Sam stammered, trying to curl into himself to get warm.

‘Okay, Sam, okay. Hang tight a sec.’ 

Dean got up and stripped the comforter and blanket from one of the beds, rolled Sam away from the bloody mess on the tiles and tucked him up like a burrito. Then he wedged himself between Sam and the wall and pulled him in close and rubbed his hands up and down his back to help warm him.

‘There you go, Sammy. Get you all nice and warm,’ Dean crooned, slipping his fingers briefly under Sam’s jaw to check his pulse again. No change. ‘Bobby’ll be here in a few minutes. We’ll get you all fixed up. You just hang in there.’

‘Don’t wanna go, Dean,’ Sam mumbled. 

‘It’s just the hospital, Sam. They’ll make you all better. Good as new. You’ll see,’ Dean said with over bright reassurance like he was talking to the frightened five-year-old Sam who had needed his tonsils out.

’N-No, Dean,’ Sam stammered. ‘Don’t want to leave you.’

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Dean said, fear starting to trickle in at Sam’s words and making him re-think about calling an ambulance.

‘Have to go, Dean. But not to get away from you. You know that, right?’ Sam continued to mumble. ‘Not even Dad. Love Dad. Know you don’t think so….’

‘Don’t talk like that. I know you loved him. He knew it, too,’ Dean said, tears springing to his eyes. ‘Sam. You’re not makin’ sense.’ He tugged Sam in closer. ‘What’re you talkin’ about?’

‘Come with me, Dean. Sun and sand. Pretty girls.’ Sam smiled hazily up at Dean, and it looked grotesque through the blood staining his teeth and gums. ‘Leave the monsters to the shadows. ’S all I want—wanted, Dean…you to come with me.’

Sun and sand? Dean frowned. ‘Stanford? Sammy, are you talking about Stanford? You wanted me to come with you to Stanford?’ he said, stunned. What the hell would he have done in Stanford? But…. ‘Sam, why didn’t you just ask?’

‘Couldn’t.’ Sam rubbed his face in Dean’s shoulder. ‘Didn’t give me the chance. Disappeared. Didn’t even say good-bye.’

Dean _had_ disappeared that night, left Sam and Dad to their shouting match and vanished into the dark. He’d been so angry, felt so betrayed, that he didn’t trust himself not to lay his little brother out cold if he got in reach of him. He’d have done a lot worse than Dad, been a lot more dangerous, so he’d left instead.

‘Sam, I….’

‘I know. I hurt you,’ Sam said, tilting his head up. His eyes flashed with a moment of clarity. ‘Thought you hated me.’

‘Jesus, Sam.’ Dean tucked Sam’s face into his throat and kissed the top of his head. ‘I could never hate you, baby boy.’

Sam moaned weakly. ‘Haven’t called me that in so long…since before.’

Dean just pressed another kiss to Sam’s head, sucking back against a sob.

——

This time when Sam woke up, the first thing he noticed was the familiar erratic rumble-snort of Dean’s snoring over the incessant beeping of machines that sounded familiar as well, much more so than he wanted to admit. He turned his head to see Dean, sprawled in the too small recliner that had been pulled close enough for Dean to be able to reach through the bars of the hospital bed and hold Sam’s hand lying closest to him on top of the thin blanket, though his grip had slipped sometime during the night and his arm dangled free at an uncomfortable angle now.

Sam grimaced. If he was back in the hospital, something really bad must have happened. His memory was spotty after Bobby picked them up at the hospital the first time. He could remember his belly hurting. Bad. His stomach hurt, too, in fact his whole abdomen had felt hard, too full, and even the slightest movement caused anything from a dull ache to a sharp pain. There was blood, too, more of it than there should have been, splattered across his memory, he thought, but he wasn’t clear on whose it was. Dean looked okay from where he lay, so Sam figured it must have been his own.

He took stock of himself now and found that he was mostly clear headed other than the fogginess of painkillers. His belly was still sore, but nothing like it had been, and there was a stinging sort of itch on either side of his abdomen that he found must be incision sites when he tugged up his hospital gown to reveal two small bandages taped securely in place there. His whole torso was still a mass of greenish-yellow bruises, and he had an inkling that some internal bleeding must have been involved somewhere. 

He wanted to wake Dean and ask him for the details because he wasn’t at all sure how long he’d been out and snip-its of a possibly embarrassing conversation were pushing to the surface. But Dean was snoring, and the thing about Dean’s snoring was that he only did it when he was exhausted, at the ragged edge of collapsing; because even if the spirit was willing, the body had been pushed too far and too hard.

So, Sam laid still in the bed and dozed a little, watching the room lighten toward late morning, until Dean started to talk in his sleep.

‘…Ridiculous…don’t talk like that….’ Dean twitched in the chair. ‘Sam…don’t go…said you’re not goin’ _anywhere._ Sammy!’

‘Dean,’ Sam said loudly, firmly, the ghost of John’s drill sergeant tone echoing briefly in his voice. ‘Dean, wake up.’

‘Yessir.’

Dean came out of sleep like a dog whose leash had been jerked. It took him a fraction of a second to make sense of his surroundings, and then his shoulders slumped and he scrubbed at his face, wiping it clean of a flash of grief and sudden tears that dotted his lashes.

‘Dean?’

Sam’s much softer inquisitive brought Dean’s head up fast. He was out of the chair in an instant and leaning over the bed, hands skating over Sam’s body as if to check him for injuries or pain.

‘Sammy, you okay, kiddo?’

Sam grasped one of Dean’s wrists, staying his aimless searching. ‘Dean, I’m good. I’m okay.’

Relief flooded Dean’s face but fury was hot on its heels. ‘Do you know what kind of fucking _stupid_ stunt that was checking yourself out like that?’

Exhaustion—because anesthesia induced sleep did not qualify as rejuvenating—and leftover pain made Sam’s temper flare to meet his brother’s, even knowing the sudden outburst was fueled by pent up fear that had probably been simmering in Dean’s gut for the last however many hours Sam had been out of it. 

‘What the hell was I supposed to do, Dean? Let a fucking Reaper have you? Just…give up on you?’ Because it was coming back to this, always back to this. Dean was lashing out because he was being eaten by grief, and nothing Sam could do would make it easier or better.

‘Yeah, maybe you should’ve!’ Dean snapped. ‘It didn’t fucking help! Dad’s still dead.’

 Bingo.

Dean needed a scapegoat. He needed a focus for the pain, a place to put the blame that he could point to and hate with every cell in his body because he had never been so alone in his life as he was now without the man who had raised him, taught him, trained him, and set his feet on this path that there was no going back on.

Sam’s face went ashen. He swallowed thickly, wound his fists in the sheet beside him, and one of the machines attached to him began to beep in protest. 

‘Yeah. Yeah, he is,’ he said in a quiet tone that belied the quick little breaths jerking in and out of him and turning his vision grey at the edges. Because he could be that scapegoat if it was what his brother needed, but not yet. Not just yet. He needed his own time to grieve; time to come to terms with the dark truth that _if_ John’s death was a sacrifice to let Dean live then Sam was glad of it, and the guilt that came with that.

Dean swung away, slamming the flat of his hand into the wall beside the door. ‘Dammit.’

‘Dean, I-I….’ Sam’s voice wouldn’t hold. He couldn’t get enough air in. The machine beside him was going berserk now, and a nurse came rushing in in response. She went immediately to Sam’s side, checked monitors, and pulled an oxygen mask down over his face.

‘Breathe, Sam. Slow and easy.’ She patted his arm. ‘Something upset you, sugar?’

She took one look at Dean’s eyes, turned the dangerous roiling green before a hail storm on the prairie, and had her answer.

‘Mr. Basheer,’ she said sternly to get Dean’s attention. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to step outside. Your brother needs his rest.

‘Sammy…’ Dean mouthed on a breath of sound, but Sam heard it. His eyes flick to Dean and where he expected to see blame and anger, he saw only anguish and…guilt.

‘Dean….’

Sam tried to speak, tried to reach out, but the nurse shushed him and gently pushed him back against the pillows. She shot another hard look at Dean and was amazingly unaffected by the expression on his face that even the most dangerous of the monsters they hunted thought twice about before challenging.

A cold, hard knot formed in the pit of Sam’s stomach that had nothing to do with the internal bleeding or post surgical recovery, and everything to do with the defeated sag of Dean’s shoulders, that was like a mountain giving way to the weight of eons, as he turned and walked away.

Sam had told his brother once that he prayed every day. Well, it had been a while—ever since that priest in Providence—because what little faith he’d managed to cobble together and hold onto before was eroded now, and tarnished by so much of what he’d seen and done over the last year.

But as Dean’s back retreated through the door and down the hallway, Sam felt something else inside him start to erode, and he closed his eyes and breathed out a single silent plea,

_Dear God…help him._

Because when all the faith in the world died, Sam realized he would still have something to hold onto; the person whose strength and guidance and love he had clung to all of his life. His brother. But the guilt in Dean’s eyes was a poison that would eat at him slowly from the inside out until there was nothing left; and then Sam would be left adrift, bereft of anything to tie him to himself and hold him to this world.

The knot in his stomach tightened so that he groaned involuntarily at the pain and the nurse soothed him and turned up the morphine drip a couple of notches. Sam fought as hard as he could to stay conscious, to ask the nurse to please bring his brother back in to him; but his tongue had grown clumsy behind his teeth and his eyelids were transforming to lead so that he couldn’t hold them open.

 

Sam wasn’t awake when Dean came back to his room near sunset—eyes bloodshot, smelling of smoke, tequila with a side of Jack, and bad perfume—and pulled the recliner close enough to the bed that he could lay his head on his brother’s hip after pulling down the bedrail and lacing the shaking fingers of his left hand with Sam’s while the palm of his other went to rest over Sam’s heart and his fingers unconsciously drummed to the beat beneath them. He didn’t speak, his whiskey ruined voice too worn and thin to make any sound that he could trust. He just laid there letting the tears run down to the blanket beneath his cheek, and somewhere in his alcohol addled brain some part of himself found a voice; a very small part that stayed hidden from the horrors of what he did everyday; a part that had gotten down on its knees every night before bed and folded its small five-year-old hands and believed its mother when she said angels were watching over them; that part found enough breath to pray, 

_Dear God…please help me. Help me save him._

And the man that small part of himself had grown up to be buried his face in his brother’s side and whispered,

‘I love you, Sammy.’

 

**Author's Note:**

> AMA-'against medical advice'


End file.
